The present invention is a combination airship and spacecraft that uses its lifting gas as fuel for thrusters to achieve space flight. The airship aspect operates to provide lift with lifting gas in one or more gas retaining structures that may change in volume. The spacecraft aspect provides control, power, services, and interior space for missions of the airship/spacecraft. An airship/spacecraft may be connected with others to form larger space structures and spacecraft, as shown in FIGS. 16-19.
There is presently a quest for a means to achieve economical heavy lifting into space. Construction of the limited space-station using multiple rocket launches, with assembly by crews manning the U.S. Space Shuttle orbiter, has proven to be expensive and uncertain by reason of the cost and risk. Current space technology, most notably in the United States of America, continues to rely upon conventional rocket configurations to achieve a substantial presence in space. The principal prospect of departure from such reliance exists in the space-plane project currently in the development phase. All such technologies require structures and materials that will withstand high g-forces and temperatures, because all such technologies involve high speed operation with significant atmospheric friction and rapid acceleration and deceleration.
Recent entries in the field are known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,730,390 and 5,842,665 in which prior art in space launch technology alternate to conventional rocket powered orbital insertion is discussed. Both of these inventions are for single stage, thruster-driven-rotor, rotor-driven, vertical-take-off spacecraft, and therefore rely upon aerodynamic effects to achieve altitude. The first of these, titled "Reusable Spacecraft", also relies upon the shape of the spacecraft to act as an aerodynamic lifting body to gain altitude under power. That patent claims "a disk-shaped casing configured to generate buoyancy in horizontal travel through a gas atmosphere". Although the term "buoyancy" is used there, it is clear that the concept of aerodynamic lift was intended, because only aerodynamic lift is generated as a result of "horizontal travel through a gas atmosphere". Moreover, the patent does not include as an element of the invention the use of a lifting gas to create "buoyancy", as in the operation of a lighter-than-air-craft. "Buoyancy" as used in the present application means the effect of an object rising in a fluid as a result of relative lightness of the object with respect to the weight of the volume of the fluid the object displaces. Both of the above-referenced inventions require the consumption of fuel to take-off and climb through the atmosphere, with power supplied by thrusters which burn such fuel. Neither of these inventions involve the use of a lighter-than-air system for lifting the spacecraft through the atmosphere, or involve the use of lifting gas as fuel for thrusters or other power generation.
The use of gaseous hydrogen as fuel for turbo-type thrusters is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,640. The Combined Air-Hydrogen Turbo-Rocket Power Plant disclosed in that patent, however, uses evaporating liquid hydrogen to power its compressor to compress air into which gaseous hydrogen is injected for combustion, and does not use its compressor to compress the hydrogen.
That rockets have been carried aloft by balloons and launched from altitude is well known: the balloon was an expendable flexible gas envelope that was discarded upon launch, without a framework structure and without any role in the enhancement of the lifting capacity of the lifting gas except to expand as the pressure of the ambient atmosphere decreases with altitude. The present invention is clearly distinct from such a system. The present invention is an airship and a spacecraft. The present invention may include dynamic gas retaining structures with expandable frameworks which are used to maximize the altitude to which the lifting gas will be effective to lift the airship. The present invention uses the lifting gas as fuel for thrusters which then power on the flight of the entire airship/spacecraft. The present invention provides a single-stage launch vehicle which can use the airship structures as components of space-frames and larger spacecraft.
The present invention has elements that are covered generally by class 244, aeronautics, and may be considered under the following subclasses: 3, compound aeronautical machines; 12.2, circular; 12.3, dual propulsion; 12.4, thrust tilting; 24 miscellaneous aircraft; 29, propelled aeronautical machines; 61, aircraft power plants adapted to use the sustaining gas of an airship as fuel; 97, devices for changing buoyancy of lighter-than-air craft; 125, construction of hull and internal structure of lighter-than-air craft; 126, construction of outer surface of lighter-than-air craft; and, 158, machine or structure designed for travel in the upper reaches of and/or beyond the atmosphere of a celestial body. Also to be considered is class 60, power plants, particularly subclass 246.